And, what he also did not have by the end of his eight-year presidency was a robust, effective intelligence community. The CIA saw its elite clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations, decimated both in personnel and budget. It is estimated the Clinton administration diverted nearly 80 billion dollars a year away from Defense to its domestic agenda. And the CIA took massive hits from its portion of the Defense budget. Meanwhile, under directed personnel cuts, the CIA shut down a good share of its overseas operations, and our number of human spies (human intelligence or Humint) was decimated, with severe consequences to follow.
As almost all presidents do, Clinton directed a review of intelligence priorities and intelligence reform. There is nothing particularly bad about this; it is a well-established historical event. Harry Truman directed one via the Hoover Commission in 1949. Eisenhower did so with a second Hoover Commission in 1955. Nixon appointed the Packard Commission to review intelligence performance. Jimmy Carter opted for zero-based budgeting to reform intelligence. Ronald Reagan set up the Grace Commission to recommend restructuring.15 But Clinton’s emphasis was on being selective due to tight budget allowances for the foreign agenda. The administration set up a tier system to do this. Issues were divided into two sets—hard targets and transnational issues (such as Cuba, Iran, Iraq, China, North Korea, Libya, and weapons proliferation, narcotics, terrorism, and international crime) and global coverage” (everything else). Further, within these two sets was a tier system ranking things from 1 (top priority) to 4 (bottom).
In other words, the intelligence community was of necessity to ignore the bottom tier of requirements (known as Tier 4 countries), which it could not fund under the cuts it took. It was inevitable that some significant events were going to be missed, and the intelligence community would then be blamed for intelligence failures. The best example, and there were significant others, was in 1998 when the intelligence community missed predicting nuclear tests by both India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, in what was to become the Clinton administration’s biggest and costliest overseas military deployment, Bosnia missed the cut as well. Simply put, resources were focused elsewhere under the Tier system.
It was apparent to the DCI, Jim Woolsey, early on that he was not going to have direct access to the president. Although he tried to make it work, finally, in frustration, Woolsey turned in his resignation after having served just less than two years. Never without a quip, Woolsey was later to joke that when a small plane crashed on the White House lawn people “thought it was me trying to get an appointment to see the president.”
After considerable arm-twisting, Clinton finally secured the agreement of Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch to reluctantly take the job. Deutch lasted only one-and-a-half years before he resigned. The next DCI nominee, Clinton’s National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, withdrew his nomination after an acrimonious series of events clearly indicated his confirmation hearings were going to be contentious. Finally, six months later, Clinton turned to Deputy Director George Tenet, a savvy professional with great contacts in Congress, who won easy confirmation in July 1997.
Clinton’s lack of understanding about the cohesiveness of the intelligence community, and of the principled stands analysts and others are often called upon to take, is reflected in his desire at the end of his administration to pardon the convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. In 1985, Pollard had been arrested and convicted of spying for the Israelis and received a life sentence. Over the years, the Israeli government had lobbied hard to get Pollard pardoned, to remove the blight of their operation against the United States. With Clinton, they almost succeeded. Word reached the senior levels of the U.S intelligence community that Clinton was seriously considering a pardon of Pollard as one of his final acts. Sources claim that the DCI at that time, George Tenet, made it known to the president such an act would have serious repercussions. Rumor is that Tenet even threatened to resign should the president pardon Pollard, although I have no evidence that this was the case. Knowing Tenet, however, I would certainly not be surprised at such a principled stand.
President George W. Bush (2001–) took office in one of the most hotly disputed elections in U.S. history without a majority of the vote. But it was clear even before the election the new president was going to be very interested in intelligence. The candidate Bush made it clear he valued the personal intelligence briefings very much. Immediately after taking office, he asked the sitting DCI, George Tenet, to remain in position.
As of this writing it is too early to make any lasting observations about this president and intelligence. There have already been, however, two seminal events regarding intelligence—the tragedy of September 11, 2001, and the Second Gulf War.
In regards to the former, the president has made it clear that, while he reluctantly supported an inquiry into why intelligence failed to warn us of 9/11, he nonetheless had full faith in DCI Tenet and in the CIA. Regarding the Second Gulf War, the failure of UN and administration weapons inspectors to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has been embarrassing to an administration that used those weapons’ very presence as the main justification for going to war unilaterally and without provocation. Press releases as I was finishing this book in January 2004 indicated that there was yet another move afoot to blame the intelligence agencies for the failure to locate the WMD. I suspect that, as with other so-called intelligence failures, it will be found that intelligence performed its duty well, but what they found and reported was not in line with what an administration in power desired. Unfortunately, history is replete with similar examples.
For those who are interested in presidents and how they handle and use/abuse intelligence, I recommend three books:
• John Helgerson’s, Getting to Know the Presidents: CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates: 1952–1992 is a seminal work not to be missed.
• Christopher Andrew’s excellent work, For the President’s Eyes Only.
• G. P. A. O’Toole’s Honorable Treachery.
1. Robert Gates, “An Opportunity Unfulfilled: the Use and Perceptions of Intelligence at the White House,” Washington Quarterly, Winter 1989, pp. 38–39.
2. Elting E. Morrison and John Blum, eds., Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), Vol. 6, p. 1444.
3. Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only—Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York: HarperCollins, 1995).
4. Gates, “An Opportunity Unfulfilled,” p. 42.
5. John L. Helgerson, Getting to Know the President: CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates, 1952–1992 (Washington, D.C.: The Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), p. 71.
6. Ibid., p. 81.
7. Ibid., p. 364.
8. Ibid., p. 94.
9. Ibid., p. 105.
10. Ibid., p. 434.
11. Ibid., p. 459.
12. Ibid., p. 143.
13. Ibid., p. 524.
14. Ibid., p. 6.
15. Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allan E. Goodman, Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000), p. 31.
TWENTY
THE BAND:
AN OPERATIONAL TOOL
I couldn’t possibly finish a book about my career in intelligence without expressing my respect for anyone who was with me or who has helped me over the years with the greatest operational tool ever employed, the Band. Taking a note from The Blues Brothers, we always had “a full tank of gas, and it was 300 miles to Chicago.”
One of the most important tools any officer brings to the human intelligence side of the house is an interest in things other than just their work. Successful case officers all have one thing in common—a variety of outside interests that make them interesting people, interests that can be parlayed into allowing them to meet a large and varied community of people. In my own case, over 35 years, it was music and tennis. The music part started in my first tour.
I learned guitar and played in a small and inept band during my time at the University of Oregon. When I entered the military, I found myself in a lonely outpost on the East German border, and latched up with two musically accomplished individuals. One was an established presence in the theater at Harvard (a Hasty Pudding regular). The other was an accomplished solo guitarist and Irish vocalist of merit. As a result, in two years on the border, we put together a significant number of performances. I immensely enjoyed the experience.
After the army and a brief career in private industry, I found myself in Washington, D.C., with the CIA. The fellow from Harvard with whom I had performed in my army tour in Germany was living in Washington, so we did a number of private performances there. When I got my first overseas posting, to Asia, it wasn’t long before another China hand and I hooked up and did a few gigs over the next few years.
I went on to a second Asian assignment, and got very heavily involved in music, both personally and operationally. I frequented a local bar famous for bluegrass music, and after several evenings of just enjoying the music, I was asked if I played and if I’d like to do a number or two on stage. Of course I did. I was asked to appear regularly as a guest from the audience. I enjoyed it, and I met a number of local government officials who happened to go there regularly. They in turn were thrilled to have me stop by their table on nights when I performed. It was, from the standpoint of putting me in touch with potentially useful contacts, a gold mine. And strangely, no one else in the band spoke any English, and I spoke their language only in rudimentary terms. We would do the songs as done in Nashville—every note right, every word correct, even though they didn’t have a clue as to the meaning of the words. At a break, we would sit down, but we couldn’t talk to each other.
In addition to the guitar, I studied banjo and really enjoyed it. And, when our ambassador organized the largest American celebration ever held in the capital city—the U.S. Bicentennial celebration—he personally approached me and asked if perhaps I could put together a small set of two or three bluegrass numbers, as typical of our country’s music. I agreed, and my banjo teacher and I worked out a couple of nifty bluegrass tunes to fill in.
We were enjoying the massive event when the U.S. ambassador walked up to the podium, in front of what was estimated to be over 10,000 people jamming the area, and announced, “Now I’d like to present the featured performers,” and introduced us.
Simple words can’t explain how scared my partner and I were. As we stepped up to the mikes, my partner turned to me and whispered, “I’m too scared—I can’t play,” which scared me even more. After I threatened him with unspeakable horrors, we kicked off with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” and the crowd went nuts. We followed with “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” and by now we could have committed a capital crime and had people cheering. We finished with “Dueling Banjos” and did three encores. Subsequently, I got invitations from the ambassador for months to every function he held. I met lots of important contacts.
I formed another band soon after arriving at my next assignment, and it was operationally useful as well. What a group it was! It was pure bluegrass and country. I played the banjo mostly, and the lead guitarist/vocalist was a rat-control specialist from the United Nations. The bass/mandolin player was a British geologist, and the rhythm guitarist/vocalist was a State Department political officer. It was quite an eclectic group.
We played at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, gave a free concert for the local residents, sponsored by the United States Information Service (USIS), and to top it all, played by invitation at the home of the Soviet ambassador.
Upon posting to my European assignment, I quickly hooked up with a number of local military musicians. I formed and played in three bands while there. We played concerts at the local U.S. military clubs, and again performed at the ambassador’s residence and gave a free public concert under USIS auspices. On top of that, we were paid rather well when doing regular gigs at the military clubs. I considered (only briefly) giving up my career in the CIA to play regularly when I discovered I would make more money as a musician than I could as a CIA spy.
Back to another Asian assignment; it was now becoming easier to form a good band. We played a number of gigs at the homes of various officials around the capital, and at the embassy. This time the band was good enough to cut a professional recording. In my final assignment, Germany, we put together perhaps the best band I have played with, AKA (intelligence jargon for “also known as”). It was a larger group than usual, and had excellent vocalists, both male and female. We did 11 concerts in Germany, including several resorts and free concerts for the public and for the American community. The band was good enough to reassemble twice back in the United States to play a couple of local gigs.
TWENTY ONE
WHAT’S WRONG AND
WHAT’S RIGHT WITH THE CIA
We need to be very critical of our massive intelligence structure. Criticism keeps it honest, and constantly reviewing how it operates keeps it effective. Taxpayers deserve this kind of scrutiny. I do think the CIA is a terrific organization, but I also think a number of very serious things must be addressed if the CIA is to remain the premier intelligence organization in the world.
We need to remember that the CIA’s unique contribution to the United States government is that its sole reason for existence is spying. The CIA doesn’t need to duplicate the efforts of other parts of the government. It has to do what no one else can do—spy, analyze the product, and produce all-source intelligence to policymakers.
Beginning in the 1990s we got away from this, and have yet to recover fully, although I believe we are making great strides in that direction. Affirmative action, diversity, and equality for all are admirable, and I support them and have supported them throughout my professional career. There are, however, some realities to spying that simply must be accepted:
Not all the people who spy will work for whomever we determine will be their case officers. A 22-year-old female case officer was sent out to me to handle a 60-year-old Asian asset. He did not want to deal with her, believing it beneath his status as an elder in his society. I was told to make it work. That was, and is, stupid. Equal opportunity and diversity aside, we needed this man for the access he gave us, and we failed to deal with that fact.
You simply cannot operate in the overseas environment effectively without two things: language, and knowledge of the culture. By 1994, we refused to acknowledge this, and the overseas assignment system went bankrupt. People got assignments simply because they wanted a European or an Asian assignment to broaden their career path to promotion. After several years, we had numerous locales filled with officers that neither knew the culture of the countries to which they were assigned, nor spoke the language. A recipe for disaster followed, and we are still trying to catch up.
You can’t spy from headquarters. Beginning around 1992, we closed a large number of overseas facilities to save money, with the idea that we could run these operations out of headquarters. We paid the price for this numerous times, and unfortunately, have yet to fix this problem. In Bosnia, Somalia, parts of Southeast Asia, and most of Africa, we have tried to go in on a temporary-duty basis whenever something comes up. We no longer have the contacts in depth in these regions that we historically had. You simply can’t depend on a local police chief, or chief of intelligence, to be your buddy and confidant when you see him once a year. We are seeing the results of this in the difficulties we are having in getting intelligence in Afghanistan. Officers who don’t speak the language, carrying bags of money, simply can’t do the job required. A permanent presence would have alleviated this. And, in the crisis following September 11, 2001, we bolstered our capability at the Headquarters’ Counter-terrorism Center (CTC). We indeed tripled the number of people working there, but took more officers back from overseas to do so when what we really needed was more spies on the ground.
We need to continue to give emphasis to langu
ages. I have been assured this is being addressed, but it is clear now in the war on terrorism that we are woefully inadequate in language-capable officers. Many of us complained when we saw the CIA’s language depth disappearing, but no one wanted to do what needed to be done. Salary incentives for difficult languages used to be granted, but that went by the wayside. Language capability used to be one of the essentials to secure an overseas assignment. That too went by the wayside. Simply put, it does no good to send an English-speaking-only officer to a country where those with the secrets don’t speak English.
Spying takes unique individuals. Beginning in 1992, for reasons that tie into diversity and related trends, we determined that the trouble with the Directorate of Operations was its culture. And we undertook, unfortunately, a program that I call “Kill That Culture.” And we did. We also damn near killed our ability to spy in the process. The evils in the system could have been addressed without ripping the guts out of the Directorate of Operations. The truth is, not everyone can spy. Live with it, and reward that small number of officers who can actually successfully recruit people to spy.
We need to recognize that perhaps a number of officers should spend their careers in only one or two countries, becoming the experts they need to be. We got so worried about the possibility that our officers would go native that it is nearly impossible to find officers who stay more than three years in any one country. We used to have numerous officers who made their entire career serving in only one geographical component. That practice fell to the broadening experience that came to be one of the precepts toward promotions.
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